Social-Emotional Learning

A very important part of school readiness (and life readiness!) is social emotional learning. This refers to things such as learning how to express and understand feelings, how to have positive relationships with adults and peers, and how to do things for yourself and others. These are skills children need to be taught, just like they are taught their ABC’s and 123’s.

For some children these skills come easy, and some need extra support to learn them. SCCDC uses the Pyramid Model for Social Emotional Competence in Infants and Young Children and the DECA to help children learn these skills, and to give them the level of support that they need to do so.

We have many different types of supports we can offer for children. Many of these include the Mental Health Manager (MHM) such as;

  • Meetings with the MHM and families to discuss and plan for the needs of their child.
  • Meetings with the MHM and the teachers to come up with strategies to use in the classroom.
  • The MHM observing a child or children in the classroom, and sometimes working in the classroom with the child, to help them learn a specific skill.

The focus is always on what skill the child needs to learn, and how best to teach it to them.

Often, at home or in the classroom, children behave in ways that adults find challenging. At SCCDC we believe that all behavior is a communication. As educators, when a child is behaving in a way that we find challenging, it is our job to figure out what that child is trying to say to us, and to either meet that need, or teach them a different way to say it. We believe the best way to do this is with an approach that involves consistency and coordination with families, their support systems, and within our classrooms and centers as a whole.